Yesterday afternoon I met a young boy who I will refer to as Mr. Green Thumb. Our interaction was brief, yet his fascination left quite an impression on me.

—

His radiant smile served as proof that he was in fact pleased with my words. His eyes danced as the weight of my compliment began to marinate.

“But I don’t have green thumbs.” he replied.

I studied the two and a half foot individual standing before me. I watched him analyze both of his thumbs for a second time. My words had left him puzzled. He then proceeded to perform a thorough examination on the subject at hand. First, he carefully extended each finger checking the wrinkles and creases for evidence of green. He managed to do this while holding in his hands the very object that initiated our interaction…

“Why yes, my lovely, you do!” I exclaimed. “You have at least one green thumb on you.”

My eyes widened at the sight of his confusion. It was clear that he had never heard this expression before…”having a green thumb”. His brows scrunched at the image of this absurd reality.

“Having a green thumb is an expression.” I continued, “It means that your good at taking care of plants. Look at that plant you have. Arent you doing some things to help it grow?”

Immediately, his gaze fell upon the delicate stem maturing before us. The plant rose proudly from the bed of soil in its recycled tupperware bowl.

“Yes I did,” he agreed. “I watered it to make it grow.”

His once bewildered smile began to evolve.

He went on to share the details of the plants inception. I learned all about Mrs. King’s photosynthesis unit. He accurately described the process of plants eating food through the sun. Together, we counted five fragile leaves scattered along its stem.

A smirk dresses his face as he strolls down the aisle making his way to my podium. I have seen this expression before. He reserves it for moments like this. For him, this is a routine exercise. Another teacher, another complaint. This is common practice for James. He boldly walks through the aftermath of his mistakes. He does not fear the consequences that follow.

I, on the other hand, am furious. Yet this emotion is powerless. Fury does not jolt him. I know him well and I can tell he is awaiting its arrival. My fury will not teach him to change. It will not bring back what he stole. I fear that I may have to accept that he will always do this.

Just before arriving to me, he sends out one last smile to the class. He firmly plants himself to stand at the side of my podium and looks up at me.

“Yes?” he asks, tipping his head to the side while looking me dead in the eyes.

His presentation is well planned. He knows why I called him forward. Minutes before, we both watched Ms. Sharp enter my classroom. Her exit was even quicker than her explosive entrance. She was irate. She turned James’ secret act into a public affair.

“Ms. Kapten!” she began, as she rushed towards me, “I am appalled by what I witnessed yesterday…James was caught stealing out of a classroom!”

She met me at the front of my classroom. Her eyes scanned the sea of students for her target. James’ shifty eyes assisted her in locating her suspect. His attempt to camouflage his existence had failed.

This was not James’ first time stealing at school. He was notorious for this act. Most of us were well informed of the details of his previous offenses. In the first month of school when Ms. Dodson was out sick, James led three of his classmates into her room. They attacked her snack closet while the rest of the fourth grade hallway was at recess. A handful of Taki’s, Twizzlers, and Sour Patch kids earned them each two days of out of school suspension. This incident was only the beginning. In the months to follow he would lead a series of poorly planned heists on campus. Each would route him to the same destination. A visit to the principal’s office and two days of out of school suspension.

“Yesterday,” Ms. Sharp went on, “James reached his greedy little hands into a teacher’s desk and he stole!”

The classes hushed whispers filled the empty space her accusations left behind.

“Is that right?” I asked, rotating my glare to James’ direction.

“Yes ma’am. He saw a bag of lollipops and helped himself right to it.” she continued, “He even tore open the bag! Can you believe that bag was not even open?”

His gaze shifted to his lap and then landed off to the side. I imagined his mind racing through a list of possible explainations. Was he plotting his exit strategy? What kind of story was James cultivating?

“James,” I anounced, “please step foreward.”

Ms. Sharp exited the classroom as swiftly as she entered.

“What happened?” I asked, maintaining my voice just above a whisper.
James did not expect this. We stood at the front of the classroom. His back was to his classmates. Only I could see the expression on his face begin to transform.

“I took the…stuff.” He said, darting his eyes away from mine.

“No, that is not going to work.” I explained further. “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me what happened. Tell me what you did.”

He grew more uncomfortable the longer he stood before me. He began to exert his nervous energy before my eyes. His left leg became jittery, bouncing off of his toe as he leaned the majority of his weight onto his right leg. One hand found a tattered sticker on my podium. Anxiously, he began to pick and pull at it. He stammered as he began…

“I…I….tt-took the lollipops.” He mumbled.

I was not satisfied with that answer. His fidgeting was proof that he felt some level of shame. I needed him to live in it for a just a moment. I had never witnessed him physically feeling the shame of what he’s done. Perhaps living with that feeling for a moment will encourage him to avoid it in the future.

“Explain to me how you first saw the bag…did it belong to you?” I persisted.

“No.” he said, his voice dropping even lower, “I went…behind her desk.”

“Were the lollipops on top of her desk?” I asked, trying to contain my composure.

“Was she passing them out as treats?”

“No,” he answered, “I..I…I opened the drawer and..and saw them.”

He struggled to keep his eyes matched with mine. My gaze remained solid. His leg bounced a little faster as his nails dug a little further into the edge of that sticker.

“When you saw the unopened bag of lollipops what did you think? What did you choose to do first?” I began again.

He paused for a moment. He looked above me. He looked to the side of me.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me what you did.” I insisted.

Finally, his eyes met mine.

“I opened it…and took a lollipop.” He whispered.

I had never seen him display this color of shame before. This was not the interaction he planned for. I was not listing all the reasons as to why he was wrong. He was not interrupting me with his lineup of excuses.

“Did it belong to you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Did you steal from the teacher because you were hungry?”
Tears began to well up in the bottom rim of his eyes.

I was mesmerized by her eyes. They were deep brown windows into her soul. I lingered quietly behind my mother’s shadow, sneaking glimpses of her. She tightly clenched her mother’s hand as they stood in the center of our garage. Becky, her mother and her father.

It was such a quintessential picture. It felt as though I witnessed the opening scene of a novel being played out in real time. Uncle Caleb wore a joyous grin across his face as he ushered his family through the entrance of our dingy garage. Aunty Gladys smiled solemnly as she reached for Becky’s hand. She pulled Becky’s scrawny arm close to her bosom. Becky’s eyes danced around the garage quietly studying the peculiar objects surrounding her.

Her eager eyes took notes as she looked first toward to our shoes stacked on wooden planks, then the mops and brooms in the corner near the dusty vacuum. She took in the dingy maroon oil-soaked carpet underneath her feet. The humming white Frigidaire freezer held her attention until her gaze finally met mine, and she smiled. Her skin was a deep brown as dark as her eyes. Becky was my cousin and this was my very first time meeting her.

Weeks before their arrival my mother introduced this arrangement to me. She explained why Becky and her mother were coming to live with us for an indefinite period of time. My mother told me about my five year old cousin Becky who had just been diagnosed with cancer.

“Was she born with it?” I asked.

“No Sia, it developed in her body over time much later after she was born.” my mother explained.

Becky’s cancer appeared out of thin air. She had always been a healthy child. There were no outstanding reasons for any alarm. One evening during a bath her mother discovered an unexplainable swelling on the lower part of her stomach. This led them to a series of visits to several specialists which would later result in even more unexplained conclusions. Months later they would receive the official diagnosis. Becky had stage 3 Neuroblastoma Cancer.

“We have to all be strong for them,” she went on to tell me.

“You have to do for her here in America what her sister Anita will not be able to do back home in Nairobi.”

Her words presented me with a role to play in Becky’s story. I now had a responsibility to make Anita proud and take care of her sister until Becky returned home to her. Whether intentional or not, that conversation guided my thinking.

I was distantly familiar with cancer was and what it did to the human body. I knew that it was a monstrous disease. I had watched cancer survivors on television before. They told their survival stories with such grace and strength. Cancer had taunted them with the threat of death, and in spite of its fatal intentions, they thrived. As a child, I genuinely considered Becky’s survival story to be no different. I was confident that she too would beat cancer and live on to tell her story. I imagined her sitting on Oprah’s yellow couch sharing her story with millions of viewers watching her win just like I was.

I can still feel the warmth of the sun heating up our garage on that sunny September afternoon. I had just turned thirteen. I felt exceptionally awkward. I did not feel as though I fit the image of what a thirteen year old girl should be. In so many arbitrary ways I searched to find myself in other people’s stories. That proved to be difficult because all the kids I knew were so vastly different from me. All of my peers enjoyed the perks of childhood. Regrettably for me, puberty and my mother were two unstoppable forces pushing me to outgrow these simple liberties at a rather accelerated pace.

At first glance in that garage, Becky reminded me of my mother. Not the mother I knew today as Mom, but the little girl she had shown me in pictures. Becky’s hair was short and shaved close to her scalp. She donned the classic Kenyan girl cut. I was never fond of that haircut. I remember the day my mother showed me the withered black and white photographs of her and her sisters when they were little. As my mother presented the photograph, she smiled reminiscing about the day in the field when the picture was taken. The young girls looked about my age. They wore white knee high socks and plaid catholic school uniforms. Every girl in every picture had that exact haircut. My mother’s smile illuminated the picture. She stood in a semi-circle with four of her sisters around an old block speaker holding tall skinny glass bottles of Coca Cola and Fanta. I could not understand how they could match that haircut with such generous smiles. What mean individual forced them to wear their hair so short? I remember thanking God I was born in America an entire ocean away from this threat.

A procession of jolly faces waited to embrace Becky and her parents.

“Karibu, karibu! Welcome!” We all shouted

As they walked through the front door one by one, we each shared a loving embrace. They were received with a series of benevolent hugs and kisses. The guests of honor had finally arrived. I watched my mother and father spring into action with no hesitation. Within minutes pots and pans steaming with food decorated our island in the kitchen. Drinks were poured and the music amplified. Exuberant laughter and conversation filled the house.

I have a lot of memories about Becky. Her arrival is my favorite. What I remember most about her in those first few hours is how quietly curious she appeared. She was openly concealed in a foreign land. Everything within her arm’s reach was strangely familiar. As the evening progressed Becky remained within close proximity of her mother’s embrace. She smiled softly and listened as the adults around her dominated the conversation.

In the living room, my uncles reminisced with stories of home. They took turns accounting for old friends they hadn’t seen in years.

“Ay man, when is the last time you heard from Bwana Charles?” Uncle Stanley began.

“He is living in Sweden.” Cousin Oliver answered, “Yea man, he just moved out there with his family to begin a new job.”

Uncle Isaac interjected, “You will never guess who I ran into last month when I was at home!”

My Aunties gathered in the kitchen. They joined each other in bouts of vivacious laughter dishing out jokes in Kiswahili while they toggled through the assortment of food on their plates.

“Aunty, how long did you leave your dough to rise? Did you use wheat flour in your mendazzi?” Cousin Carole asked.

They all devoured every single morsel down to the last bite. My mother had surely outdone herself this time and their busy fingers were solid proof. I watched as my little cousins struggled to balance their plates on their knees with their left hand while simultaneously using their right hand to scoop the stew into their chapatti. The adults were masters of this craft. They tore their chapatti with ease, spooning up heavy amounts of stew.

Talk. Eat. Repeat.

A list of hosting responsibilities dominated my time. The performance seemed endless. I had a plethora of dishes to plate and countless feisty children to wrangle. Somewhere within the midst of that commotion, Becky’s laughter found its way to my ears. She was still sitting in the trenches with the adults. Unlike the other children, Becky appeared satisfied to be there. Amused even. Uncle Caleb sat next to her telling obscure stories using an absurd cartoon like voice. Becky laughed brilliantly. Her giggles boomed throughout the living room. Aunty Gladys’ smile now mirrored her daughter’s as she gazed at their infectious interaction. Uncle Caleb continued and his vocal in flexion bounced up and down relentlessly. She happily encouraged him with her powerful laugh. They were the perfect picture. An adoring father serving his daughter a pure dose of laughter.

Her laugh still rings through my ears. It finds me sometimes in my busiest moments much like that first day. About a year later, it was the very first sound I heard when my father told me she was no longer with us. There are some memories about Becky that I used to not want to remember. Her cancer story did not have the conclusion that I had previously authored. She was never going to sit on that yellow couch and share her story with the world. Her hair was never going to grow back. We would never sit and reminisce with our children about that time she beat cancer.

When I’m fortunate enough a particular object, movie scene, or thought will grant me a glimpse of Becky. My mind will replay the events of our first encounter. Her laughter is what I cherish the most. It colored her entire face. Her beautiful face that wore that Kenyan girl cut. I love that haircut.

When I looked in the mirror I did not recognize the woman staring back at me. I looked to my left and even you appeared to be an intruder. Another version of yourself. It was me but it wasn’t me. It was you but it wasn’t you. We changed. I was terrified by what we had authorized fear to do to our hearts. Who approved his move in? When did we allow the devil into our home? He is a devious devil. A barbaric beast. He crept in at a fragile state. He used you. He used me.

He.

Almost.

Broke.

Us.

In the midst of our development we neglected us. I had forgotten that I deserve you. I allowed fear to determine my attitude towards you. Work…school…family…life…you. My priorities were completely out of order. If I wasn’t even on the list how could we be on the list? This is what happens when you stop paying attention to the pulse. Pulse checks are absolutely crucial. Pulse checks protect against this.

I missed you. Why did I stop seeing you?

Thank you for returning to me.

You are my dreaming partner. May we forever live in this space. May our vibes remain forever connected as we move through the inevitable changes of our lives.